Is there a Doctor in the house?
by vespertine dreams
Summary: When an anomoly closes, leaving the team trapped in the future, they get help from a strange man in a pinstripe suit. Mild slash- Connor/Becker. Reviews welcome.


Is there a Doctor in the house?

Danny came jogging back around the corner of the long-abandoned library and slammed the door behind him. Becker and Connor locked it quickly. When the anomaly had closed behind them, they had been forced to find somewhere to shelter after realising that this world was not as deserted as it had first appeared.

"Well, what is it?" Abby asked.

"I don't know, but it sure isn't human."

The world outside this building, their sanctuary for the moment, was not of the past. At least, not of any past they recognised. They had seen creatures from the future before, predators that had overtaken humans as the dominant race, but these were not the same. None of the team had felt the same malevolence from them, merely the unease of being observed by something that it was obvious could overpower them. It had felt as though the whatever-they-were's had been herding them, moving up on all sides. Whether it was out of curiosity or something more sinister that they were being stalked, they had felt it better to get inside. In here, they could defend themselves should the creatures decide that just following them wasn't enough.

Now, they found themselves with nowhere else to go. The anomaly was closed and returning to the site to wait for it to reopen would mean walking the gauntlet though their unseen watchers. Since night was falling out there, they had all thought it best to wait out the dark and return to the anomaly site in the daylight tomorrow.

"I saw one out there, on the edge of the roof," Danny told them. "It was watching us but when I looked up, it scarpered."

"What did it look like?" Connor asked, sitting down on the bench next to Abby.

Danny shook his head. "I didn't get a good look; the damn things are fast. I saw something but…"

"But what?"

"This is going to sound so stupid," he said, "but it looked like a yeti." Danny glanced around at the incredulous expressions on their. "Yeah, I know, but that's what it looked like. About eight feet tall and hairy, like those photos that appear every so often of Bigfoot."

"A yeti?" Abby asked, trying not to laugh.

Danny looked offended, about to protest until a voice behind him said,

"Actually, it's a Prevlitine. Yeti's are actually a lot smaller than they look in photographs."

Becker's gun was trained on the man in an instant, as Danny, Abby and Connor turned on him. He was tall and skinny, dressed in a pinstripe suit and trainers. The excited gleam in his eyes was a little unnerving. A redheaded woman walked in behind him and looked them over with a critical eye.

"Who the hell are you?" Becker demanded.

Usually when he used that tone people either moved out of his way or, in Connor's case, went weak at the knees, but the woman cut him off with a glare.

"Us? Who the hell are you?"

The man just grinned, his attention focussed on Becker. "Oooh, nice," he commented, making Connor glare. "And taken, I see." He winked at Connor before looking the others over. "I'm the Doctor and this is Donna."

"Doctor what?"

"Just the Doctor," he shrugged. "You lot shouldn't be here. Come to think of it, how did you get here?"

Danny bristled. "Well, if we aren't supposed to be here then I assume you aren't either," he pointed out. "What are you doing here?"

"I asked first."

Abby sighed. "You're like a couple of children," she muttered. Then, to the Doctor, she said, "So, if you know what those things outside are, can you tell us if they're dangerous?"

"Well I wouldn't go outside and play with them," the Doctor replied.

"How did you get in here anyway?" Danny asked. "The doors are all locked."

The Doctor held up a small cylindrical object, metallic, with a blue light at one end as though that explained everything.

"Helpful," Danny told him sarcastically.

Abby glared at him. "Alright, I suppose someone has to start. We came through what we call an anomaly. It's like a gateway that-"

"That allows you to walk between time periods," the Doctor finished. "Of course! That's what the TARDIS honed in on. It takes a lot of energy to create one of your anomalies; it stood out like a beacon."

"Yes, well, it closed behind us and so we're stuck here until it reopens," Abby finished. "Now how did you come to be here? I've not seen any other humans at all, just those creatures."

"You still haven't," Donna told her with a laugh. "Well, except me, of course. He's a different story."

"What do you mean?" Connor asked.

"Later. Right now, you should be thinking about getting out of here before the Prevlitines decide you look tasty. Not that I could blame them," he added, his gaze once again falling on Becker.

Donna rolled her eyes. "Oh, please."

Connor moved up next to Becker and glared at the Doctor, staking his claim almost as clearly as if he had draped himself around the man's neck and planted a kiss on him. Not that he could blame the Doctor- he was damn fine to look at- but Becker was _his_ boyfriend.

"We could give them a lift," Donna suggested.

The Doctor sighed dramatically. "What do you think I am, some kind of temporal taxi service?" At Donna's disapproving glare, he relented. "Oh, come on then."

"I think you missed the part about travelling through time," Abby pointed out.

"Follow me," he said, ignoring her comment.

At Donna's urging, they followed as he led them through the library to one of the locked doors. Aiming the metal cylinder at the lock, he pressed a button and it whirred into life, the blue light shining on the door as the lock popped open. "Sonic screwdriver," he said, seeing their confusion.

Outside in the murky alleyway was a blue wooden box, about the size of a phone box with the words Police Public Call Box above the door. He held it open.

Everyone, with the exception of Donna who went straight in, just stared at him.

"No offence, mate, but you're crackers," Danny told him. "Even for a hiding place it ain't much help. It'll be a bit of a squeeze to get us all in there."

Just then there was a noise from above, another from further down the alley. Suddenly the police box didn't seem like such a bad idea, Danny thought as the creatures converged on it. They all piled inside, squashed together in anticipation of the cramped conditions inside and promptly fell over each other. Inside, the box was, well, not a box. It was a house.

"No, that's just not right," Connor said as Becker held out a hand to help him up off the floor. "It can't be…"

"It's called the TARDIS. It's a spaceship that's bigger on the inside than on the outside. Don't think about it too much; it'll just make your head hurt," Donna told him. "When are you from, anyway?"

Connor couldn't believe that they were having this conversation, and especially that Donna didn't seem at all phased by any of this.

"2009."

She smiled. "Hey, me too."

Danny and Abby had gone over to see what the Doctor was doing, taking the opportunity to look around this unreal and strange as hell room within a box. This was surreal, Abby thought, glad that the others had been here to see it as well. There was no way they would have believed her had they not seen it with their own eyes. Not paying attention to where she was going, too busy looking at the ornate ceiling, she walked smack into the Doctor.

"Sorry."

The Doctor told them all to sit down and keep out of his way, causing Donna to inform him snippily that he was being rude.

"Are you two a couple?" Danny asked, looking between the two. "Because you sound like one."

The shocked look on the Doctor's and the horror on Donna's faces was enough of an answer.

"Me? And him?" she spluttered. "God no. Besides, did you miss the 'hitting on Soldier-boy' part?"

Becker growled low in his throat. "Don't call me that."

"He gets a bit touchy about that name," Danny pointed out, as Connor and Abby tried to hide their amusement at the look on Becker's face.

The Doctor had been fiddling with something under a control panel in the centre of the enormous room. Suddenly, he stood up, looking pleased with himself.

"Got it. Ready?"

The entire room began to shudder, tilting enough to make them stumble. There was a high droning sound, along with the various noises coming from the console that the Doctor was flipping switches and pulling levers on. Then it stopped.

"What just happened?" Connor asked, frowning.

Donna opened the door. "You're back. 2009."

They said goodbye and left the TARDIS, the Doctor having refused an invitation to visit the ARC, and walked across the street. Looking back when he heard that weird droning sound again, Connor was just in time to see the TARDIS vanish.

"Did you see that?" he asked Becker, tugging on his sleeve to make him look but there was nothing there. The alleyway was empty save for a few pieces of litter shifting in the breeze.

The walk through the streets was over too quickly; they hadn't quite settled the argument of who was going to tell Lester. They were supposed to be stranded through an anomaly, the rescue probably already being planned; no way was the man going to believe that they had hitched a ride home in a spaceship.

Pushing open the door and stepping into the ARC's detector room, Danny sighed as Lester's surprised gaze took in each of them before finally settling on him.

"We can explain…"

End.


End file.
